‘Theater has been my life, and it’ll continue to be my life’

Sunday

Ed Williams founded the University of Alabama Department of Theatre and Dance in 1979. Now he’s leaving it.

“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.”— George Bernard Shaw

Ed Williams founded the University of Alabama Department of Theatre and Dance in 1979. Now he’s leaving it.In between those moments, four decades passed. Most of a life happened.Shortly after the Saturday night, April 20, performance of “Show Boat,” which Williams, 69, directed as his last official faculty show on the Marian Gallaway Theatre stage, friends, family, students and others gathered to celebrate Williams at nearby Morgan Auditorium. They included John Ross, who once taught him as an undergrad, Bill Teague, who succeeded him as chair of the department, and John Nara, a second-year graduate student, one of Williams’ last directing students.They attempted, in talks whimsical, sentimental, snarky and direct, to capture a little something of that span, which must have felt a little like trying to capture the history of theater in a classroom hour.Teague, who emceed, noted that “Ed is always about his students,” with a vision of theater as intellectually important and culturally significant.Ross, who’s known Williams for 48 years, once taught him in a scene-design class and many times worked with him on productions, said, “I have never worked with a more artistically satisfying director than Ed. ... The end result was something we could be proud of as a work of art.“Ed, you’ve done good.”Former student Paul B. Crook recounted the infamous time he fell ill during the first act of “Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” and Williams had to step into the second act as Crook’s sheriff character, wearing an ill-fitting costume, reading from the script and staring meaningfully into space as the off-stage music director sang the sheriff’s big song.Outgoing senior Michael Luwoye, one of the stars of “Show Boat,” said, “You really put your heart into your work.” His co-star and fellow senior Bridget Winder said, “I’m glad I’m leaving, because I don’t want to spend any time here without you.”Nara quoted some of Williams’ favorite playwrights, including the not-related Tennessee Williams: “All of us are guinea pigs in the laboratory of God. Humanity is just a work in progress.” Then Anton Chekhov: “The world is, of course, nothing but our conception of it,” and “Knowledge is of no value unless you put it into practice.” And George Bernard: “We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.”“The neat thing about all of those, is that at any given time in Ed’s history of theater class, you might hear one coming out of his mouth,” Nara said, “... then a smile would glaze over his face as he’d sit back on his desk and watch the faces of his students digest and react to such a quote.”He recalled his first meeting with Williams, at a New York hotel, to determine if Nara would join the UA Master of Fine Arts program.“It was one of the few times in my life I realized that I was more interested in what he was going to say than what I was going to say,” Nara said. After 30 minutes, Nara was sold, willing to skip his other interviews, hoping to spend the rest of the morning picking Williams’ brain; Williams politely told him: “Get out.”But as Nara left, Williams asked “... ‘what can I teach you, John? What would you like me to try and teach you?’ There was no hesitation on my part: ‘Vocabulary,’ I replied. ‘I want to speak like you.’ ” What Williams has taught Nara is that there is no such thing as boredom; there’s always something to learn, to be excited about. “Talking to past and present students, they all say the same thing: He didn’t just teach me how to look at theater, but how to look at life, and I can’t look at theater the same ever since. ... It’s about being human and recognizing the humanity in others, whether it’s a spurned wife in ancient Greece, a couple of lovers in Verona or a wintry bus stop in Midwest America; the stage takes us into worlds so that we can see what it means to be human.”Though he has another year at UA, Nara said it isn’t himself he feels sorry for: “I can’t help thinking of all the kids who aren’t going to have the chance to meet him out front of Rojo (Rowand-Johnson Hall) smoking and talking to students, picking up litter and pruning the shrubbery.”Williams took the podium to thank the love of his life, his wife Julia, “who’s been with me every step of the way,” their daughters, Taylor and Louisa, and the students who kept him going, challenged and involved.“I’m not dead yet, and I’ve just got to say I’ve loved every minute of it. I got to do what I love. We are the lucky ones,” he said. “I thought I’d be here a couple of years, and lo and behold, I’ve been here 42.” Whatever happens in his retirement, “That love’s not going to go away.”It’s a little difficult for some to believe Williams is truly gone, especially as he’s currently in the Gallaway at Rowand-Johnson, the theater building, for the next week or so, directing the SummerTide production of “Alabama Jubilee,” an original show co-created by music director Raphael Crystal, choreographer Stacy Alley and director Williams. The month-long professional-company show runs for the month of June in Gulf Shores. So he’s still, for the moment, in residence in the house that he — metaphorically, at least — built.Williams was hired by UA at a time when theater fell in an ungainly tangle with the Department of Speech. He’d earned a bachelor’s degree in English from UA and joined the faculty in 1971 after receiving his doctorate from Florida State university, based on a dissertation about directing Shakespeare, and observations of the work of the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon and in London.It was the work of some years to convince then-dean of Arts and Sciences Doug Jones that theater deserved its own department and that dance should join that discipline. Williams established the MA, then the MFA for professional studies; created the 27-year link between UA and the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, where he directed numerous times; led the department to national accreditation; taught in the Alabama at Oxford University and Alabama in Ireland programs; served as consultant for the U.S. Department of State to the National Theatre of Namibia, and as consultant to the University of Ulster in its efforts to establish a graduate program; served on the board of the National Association of Schools of Theatre for six years, and as Chairman of the Commission on Accreditation for three; and was recently elected to the National Theatre Conference, an honorary organization of the American Theatre.He directed a production of Edward Bond’s “Lear,” a national winner in the American College Theatre Festival, that was presented at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. He’s won UA’s National Alumni Association award for Outstanding Commitment to Teaching and a pair of Druid Arts Awards. With Julia, he’s traveled the globe with the Semester at Sea program, last summer in a two-month voyage through the Mediterranean.And that’s not all: There were dozens of plays to direct, thousands of students to lead. Shrubs to prune. Theater to do, even before he began college. Outside his immediate family, theater has been and will continue to be Williams’ life. Just how, right now, he doesn’t know. “It’s not like I’m going to be running into people at the grocery store who want to talk about 19th-century French drama,” he said, laughing.Williams is not one for looking back, much, but for looking at what’s right in front, right ahead, for example, at the work of “Alabama Jubilee.” But what he hopes he’s left behind in the way of a legacy is that theater requires discipline, focus, concentration; an ability to understand that it’s an ever-receeding horizon: “It’s not like you can ever get it in your pocket. It’s an ongoing thing, and it can never be solved.”Simply retiring from faculty doesn’t change his fundamental philosophies.“Theater history is the history of mankind, in essence,” he said. “It’s a way of seeing the world, a way of seeing the way the world shapes itself, the way the world expresses itself.”Taking those dangerous steps into other lives, vicariously, makes not just performers, but audiences, more empathetic and thus more human, he said. “It’s always got to be important to us.”For his post-SummerTide future, Williams knows only that he’ll continue to be involved with Semester at Sea. He has a yard that needs tending, a vast library, his wife, children and a new granddaughter to spend time with.“I’m going to re-invent myself; who knows? Theater has been my life, and it’ll continue to be my life.”Of course there are companies in and around the area who might like to hire Williams to direct, but “I’m not sure they can afford me,” he said, laughing.“I’ve never been bored a minute in my entire life. Time has happened to me. We’ll see. The future will reveal itself.”

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